DEER LODGE - A Missoula man serving a life sentence in state prison for a 2017 double murder admitted to an attack on correctional officials that left one with a traumatic brain injury.
Augustus Storm Standing Rock, 31, pleaded guilty in Powell County District Court to one count of aggravated assault on a peace officer while in detention and three separate counts of assault on a peace officer, according to a news release.
A plea agreement recommends that Standing Rock receive a life sentence with a 40-year parole restriction. Knudsen said the agreement means Standing Rock will not be eligible for parole until 2063. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 8, 2023.
“Montana correctional officers risk their safety every day in order to enforce rules and keep order within our jails and prisons, and I am grateful for the work they do,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in the press release. “This case, involving multiple correctional officers injured and a sergeant with a traumatic brain injury should never have happened, but I am glad justice is being served.”
Prior to the attack, Standing Rock tried to corrupt a Montana State Prison sergeant who then wrote him up. In retribution, on Jan. 18, 2022, Standing Rock attacked the sergeant and other officers trying to subdue him, the press release states.
The sergeant suffered a traumatic brain injury and broken ribs in the attack. A news release states the sergeant has been "seeing a neurologist due to ongoing memory loss issues and migraines and to recover regular thought processes."
Standing Rock is also accused of attacking other correctional officers that came to the sergeant’s aid by biting, headbutting, and punching them.
Standing Rock was serving his life sentence with the possibility of parole in the Montana State Prison after he admitted to fatally stabbing two people to death, dismembering both victims’ bodies, and trying to dissolve the body parts in tubs filled with acid in the basement of a Missoula home in August of 2017.
